Re: really "quantization"

[jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu (James Mclean)]

William J. Larson says:
> James McLean wrote
> > But charge comes only in multiples of a single fundamental amount,
> > while as far as I know the same is not true of mass.
>
> True, but outside of high energy situations (which on the Earth means
> outside of particle accelerators and cosmic rays) everything is made of
> up and down quarks, which although quite similar, are clearly different.
> The mass of the d quark is 1.4 to 4 times the mass of the u
> (as of the 1992 Particle Properties Data Booklet)

Not to mention that apparently less than half of a proton's momentum comes
from it's valence quarks.  The rest comes from the gluons and virtual quark
pairs.  (I just read this somewhere... Physics Today maybe?  Can't seem to
find it now.)

Which I think makes my point.  Even without considering high energy
situations, charge seems to be much more special than mass.

-- 
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UC San Diego, Chemistry